Thirty years ago, Jim McKay
earned an Emmy for his reporting of the terror at the Munich Olympics.
At a screening of the ABC documentary, "Our Greatest Hopes, Our Worst
Fears," which aired September 1, the Post's Mark Hale asked McKay, the
1987 ASA Hall of Fame Inductee, about the day sports' innocence was forever
lost.

MH: How did
you first learn about the terror?

JM: I was
in a sauna when somebody told me that Geoff Mason of ABC Sports was on
the phone. Geoff said, "Jim, terrorists have broken into the headquarters
of the Israeli team. They've killed one man and they say they're going
to kill one every hour. We're on the air in 45 minutes. So get down here."

MH: You had
to deliver the news that an American hostage, David Berger, had been killed.
What went through your mind, knowing you'd be informing his family?

JM: I had
been thinking about that through the 16 hours we were on the air, that
eventually I'd have to tell them alive or dead. After I heard, I thought
of a line my father had said when I was a kid - "Our greatest hopes and
our worst fears are seldom realized." And I said, "Tonight our worst fears
have been realized. They're all gone."

MH: The Games
resumed after 34 hours. Did you feel that was too soon, too late, just
right?

JM: I think
it was too soon. Maybe another day or two. But the worst was the statement
of Avery Brundage, head of the IOC, at the memorial service. He gave what
amounted to a political speech - "The Games will go on. The Olympics will
survive." What about the families of those poor men who were killed?

MH: Because
of what you went through in Munich, did 9/11 resonate any extra?

JM: My
instant reaction was to Munich. But the emotional thing was different
because in Munich we had tension, hopes and fears for all those athletes
in all different stages.

MH: New York
is a finalist for the 2012 Games. Is it time for the Games to come here?

JM: I think
it would be great. I think it would be one of the biggest events obviously
in the history of New York and the country.